Performance audit and public policy evaluation: The case of supreme audit institutions

This paper presents two public governance instruments at the disposal of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), performance auditing and policy evaluation, aimed at promoting accountability and learning in public policy development. Respective definitions and types are provided, and in relation to performance auditing the paper elaborates on the pervasive tension between independence and relevance of audit practices, associated with the stylized functions of watchdog and sheepdog. The regulatory environment for the development of policy evaluation by SAIs is briefly described. The contribution of the paper is the design of a set of parameters and associated content for each of the two instruments that allows their comparison and evolution, contrasting with the trend in the literature to identify similarities and differences between them.